“Soon you will not have a choice, so do what you can now.”
Those are the ominous words from a woman living in Bergamo, Italy, the epicenter of the coronavirus in that country. Cristina Higgins penned a letter to residents of the United States about what measures she thinks we should be taking seriously now, not later.
“I am writing to you from Bergamo, Italy, at the heart of the coronavirus crisis.
The news media in the US has not captured the severity of what is happening here.
I am writing this post because each of you, today, not the government, not the school district, not the mayor, each individual citizen has the chance, today to take the actions that will deter the Italian situation from becoming your own country’s reality.”
She thinks that Europe, the United States, and the rest of the world are going to be in Italy’s shoes within weeks, if not sooner, if we don’t take drastic measures immediately.
“The only way to stop the virus is to limit contagion.
And the only way to limit contagion is for millions of people to change their behavior today.”
Basically, for everyone out there still thinking this thing is no big deal, she wants to tell you that you’re wrong.
“First it is a flu that is devastating when people get really sick they need weeks of ICU – and second, because of how fast and effectively it spreads.
There is a 2 week incubation period and many who have it never show symptoms.”
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And the kind of lockdown that Italy had to resort to with a full-on stop of all public activity? It’s a last-ditch effort to control the uncontrollable.
“When Prime Minister Conte announced last night that the entire country, 60 million people, would go on lock down, the line that struck me most was ‘there is no more time,’ Because to be clear, this national lock down is a hail mary.
What he means is that if the numbers of contagion do not start to go down, the system, Italy, will collapse.”
The biggest problem in Italy is that too many people got infected at once, and the cases overwhelmed hospitals and staff to the point where they simply couldn’t care for everyone – a situation that inevitably cost Italian citizens their lives.
“If the numbers do not go down, the growth rate of the contagion tells us that there will be thousands of people who in a matter of a week? Two weeks?
Who will need care? What will happen when there are 100, or 1000 people who need the hospital and only a few ICU places left?”
Anecdotally, Higgins and others are seeing the virus affect more than the elderly and immune compromised, too. Patients of all ages are landing in the hospital for treatment, and even if they’re not, the weeks they need to recover are a strain.
She has some specific suggestions of steps she believes the US should take before it’s too late:
“You have a chance to make a difference and stop the spread in your country.
Push for the entire office to work at home today, cancel birthday parties, and other gatherings, stay home as much as you ca. If you have a fever, any fever, stay home. Push for school closures, now.
Anything you can do to stop the spread, because it is spreading in your communities – there is a two week incubation period – and if you do these things now you can buy your medical system time.”
Now is the time, my friends. Take advice from people who have been there, and are still living a national nightmare.
Social distancing won’t stop us from contracting the virus, not forever. The idea is to spread out the number of cases so that we can stop hospitals and doctors from being overwhelmed all at once.
You’ve got Netflix and grocery delivery and DoorDash. You can do this.
